As an example of an airborne body we will refer herein under to a precision armament. The operational requirement for increasing the stand off range in which it is feasible to launch a precision armament from various platforms (aerial, ground or maritime) dictates achieving improved aerodynamic performance of the armament (for example—more lift, less drag).
Implementing relatively large wings on the precision armament, and as an integral part of it for obtaining additional lift force for extended periods, is a given and recognized solution to this requirement.
Concurrently, there exists a requirement for compact and economical packaging as per the volume of the precision armament as said. For example—in order to enable an aerial platform (for example—a fighter aircraft) to carry a large number of armaments in proximity one to the other while reducing the aerodynamic drag resulting due to their presence on it, or in order to enable inserting armament into a container—a canister, that enables both storing and also launching of the armament from the inside of the canister, that is relatively small in its dimensions and hence enables installing a number of canisters one next to the other in a bee-hive configuration on a single launcher (that serves to enable launching the armament from the canisters in which they are installed while mounted on any kind of a platform whatsoever).
Folding the wings into the inside of the armaments and deploying them only after dropping or launching the armament, is a known and recognized technique for coping with this requirement.
Thus, in the time that preceded the invention which is the subject matter of this application, there existed many publications that described various mechanisms that serve to deploy a pair of wings from airborne bodies, wherein in their folded state before they will be deployed (spread) the wings are located one next to the side of the other or one on top of the other, alongside the airborne body, and in the deployment state the wing's couple is propelled to the spread state over a plane (herein after—“the plane of spreading the wings”). See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,141,175, 5,671,899, 6,758,435, 7,185,847.
The movement of the wings for spreading (fully or partly—in accordance with what is needed) as it occurs after the distancing of the airborne body from the platform that carried it prior to its being dropped or launched (for example—the distancing of a gliding bomb from the aircraft that before it being launched carried it together with many additional bombs, wherein they were harnessed to it one in the proximity of the other, or—another example, distancing of a cruise missile from a canister that is mounted on a launching vehicle or a vessel), as well as convergence of the wings from its deployed state to a converged state (in full or partly) as all of those are liable to occur in a dynamic mode and in accordance with the control commands during flight towards the target, are liable to expose openings of spaces that are formed in the airborne body in a manner that will detract from the airborne body aerodynamic performance. We will explain what is meant by this comment by referring to several given clarifying example drawings.
Reference is made to FIGS. 1a to 1c. The figures display a perspective view of an airborne body 10 (in the illustrated example—a gliding bomb amenable to be launched from an aircraft (that is not illustrated)), under various states (conditions). In a tied condition that is illustrated in FIG. 1a, namely the condition in which bomb 10 is carried on the aircraft wherein it is tied to a payload rack (that is not illustrated), and both of its wings assemblies—assembly 20 of the rear steering wings as well as assembly 30 of the gliding wings couple, are folded and converged into the fuselage 12 of the bomb's body. The condition illustrated in FIG. 1b depicts the couple of gliding wings 32, 34 that are deployed from the airborne body in an angular movement that is executed on the wings deployment plane while they are extracted from inside space 40 that is formed in the body of the airborne body and in which they are regularly stored (see FIG. 1a) whence in their motion they overpass over the two sides of the airborne body fuselage through openings 42 and 44 (that is not seen) that are formed on the two sides of the fuselage of the airborne body (the blackened sectors). In the state illustrated in FIG. 1c the wing's couple 32, 34 were spread to the full (maximum) extent away from the airborne body while openings 42, 44 are hence exposed to their full length (see the dimension Lc).
Thus, considering the above cited figures, any professional would understand that within the flight of an airborne body in which there is installed a pair of deployable wings, openings are exposed on the two sides of the fuselage of the airborne body whose lengths (of the openings) can keep changing in a dynamical manner during the time of the flight in line with the relative states of the wings (observe and compare the dimension Lb of FIG. 1b with dimension Lc of FIG. 1c).
It was found that openings as said, which are exposed on the two sides of the fuselage of the airborne body, harm the aerodynamic performance of the airborne body, performance level that we strive to maximize. Achieving this total performance is a must when realizing that we deal with an airborne body wherein the challenge is to bring it to its full cruising capacity (for example when gliding) to obtain relative long gliding ranges (distances).
Thus, in the time that preceded the invention which is the subject matter of this application, there existed a need for a solution in order to reduce the harm caused to the aerodynamic performance values of airborne bodies equipped with mechanisms for deploying wings from their inner spaces, such as the damage to the aerodynamic performance that is caused as an outcome of exposing the openings in the fuselage of the airborne body from the instant that the wings overpass it on their way to their various deployment states.